Is it okay to put a female in a male's tank?

[Raechal]

Okay so my little female accidentally jumped out of the net and into one of my male betta's tanks (a 10 gallon) so I watched them a bit as I couldn't really get her out because I was trying to clean 5 tanks at once and had another betta in one net and a bucket almost filled to the top from my 120 gallon just waiting to flood my room. I guess I should stick to doing one tank at a time. Anyways they chased each other around a bit, but no nipping at all. The male flared at her and she brightened up and got vertical lines and fanned out her tail real nice I guess to impress him. They just swam around together and kind of looked curious of each other. After about 2 minutes in there, I took out the female and put her in her old tank. Do you think it is okay to monitor them for awhile just for their sake of entertainment? Or is it an accident waiting to happen?

Also, I experimented it with another larger female in the 10 gallon with Deiter (my male betta) and today she looks like she is full of eggs (she is so fat) and I noticed one side of her face is really dark, like a dark grey, and the other side is a lighter cream color. I don't really know if she was like that before, but I never noticed it, or if something is wrong with her. Does anyone know what this could be?

 

[infant340]

your really fat female could become eggbound and die it doesnt lose those eggs and continues to make more.

as for the entertainment, i wouldnt do it it stress out the female, being in her water then a totalling different water the next....unless they're in a divided tank...

 

[BettaMomma]

I would have to err on the side of it being an accident waiting to happen.

If you are like me (which I know you are) you look at your bettas and notice something you didn't notice before, and it's been there all the time, but it worries you until you go crazy. Keep an eye on the fatness, give her some peas and see what happens. Also don't feed her.

I'd say everything will be just fine, but that's just a gut feeling.
Do keep an eye on her tho.

 

[Raechal]

I would have to err on the side of it being an accident waiting to happen.

If you are like me (which I know you are) you look at your bettas and notice something you didn't notice before, and it's been there all the time, but it worries you until you go crazy. Keep an eye on the fatness, give her some peas and see what happens. Also don't feed her.

I'd say everything will be just fine, but that's just a gut feeling.
Do keep an eye on her tho.

Okie dokie, will do. Hope she does okay. A lot of my females are big now though, not only the one I put in with the male. Could it just be the season for them having eggs or something?

 

[Raechal]

your really fat female could become eggbound and die it doesnt lose those eggs and continues to make more.

as for the entertainment, i wouldnt do it it stress out the female, being in her water then a totalling different water the next....unless they're in a divided tank...

Actually the water is basically the same. It is the same temp, same water from my house.

 

[FishyLoveBug]

Good thing they didnt start getting "friendly"!

 

[Kiarra]

If the weather is starting to change (like a storm is coming in), your females may be responding to that and developing eggs like mad. Mine seem to. Of course, it's storming just about every day here now, so they're all fat like blimps, no matter how little I feed them.

The behavior you observed, though, is just them showing off to each other. Some pairs will get aggressive about it, and nip and bite. Others just flare and fan their fins and swim around and basically say "look how pretty I am!" That's the prelude to mating, right there, and it's a beautiful thing to watch...when they DON'T decide to tear each other to bits. When they aren't doing any harm to each other, it doesn't cause any major amounts of stress, and they both color up really wonderfully. But it can turn very ugly very fast sometimes.